r90 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 1. 



ence at the time to it. But notice particular- 

 ly, doctor, that when I did reply to it I made 

 the statement not for the benefit of Mr. Ochs- 

 ner, but for Mr. Orton. It was the latter who 

 talked about stamping the sections in the mud, 

 and not Mr. Ochsner. While I can see no 

 good reason why the 4 % beeway section should 

 be preferred to the same size plain, I believe 

 in giving the Devil his due. — Ed.] 



A correspondent sends me a document 

 sent out by The A. I. Root Co. in which the 

 word " clubbed " is cut in two, the "club" 

 being at the last end of one line and the 

 " bed " at the beginning of the next, suggest- 

 ing that phonetic spelling would have given 

 room without resort to such division. I should 

 feel like entering a protest against the practice 

 of dividing a word of one syllable, only if I 

 should do so that fiendish proof-reader would 

 fling back at me that I not only sometimes di- 

 vide a syllable but put the hyphen with the 

 fragment that begins the second line. [The 

 division of any word at any time is objection- 

 able, and is tolerated only as a necessary evil. 

 Where the line is long, and type fine, a care- 

 ful printer can get along and make almost no 

 divisions; but as the line becomes shorter and 

 the type larger, divisions become more and 

 more unavoidable unless a still greater objec- 

 tion is introduced — that is, putting extremely 

 wide divisions between the words. The point 

 referred to was discussed in the latest issue of 

 the Inland Printer, and the judges decided 

 that it is not best to make a rule that ed shall 

 not be cut off unless it has a distinct sound, 

 as in exhausted. Such a rule would make 

 great inconvenience in lines as short as ours, 

 while it would not interfere with the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal in the least. As Mr. York 

 well says in a private letter I lately received 

 from him, the audience is not critical enough 

 to make such hair-splitting pay. The Bible 

 abounds in such divisions as you refer to, such 

 as skew-ed, compass-ed, zuorship-ped, etc. The 

 French continually divide what we call one 

 syllable. — Proof-reader. ] 



R. Wiekin, p. 751, says that alfalfa honey, 

 " if not the most popular, is a very fine hon- 

 ey." That hint that alfalfa honey is not pop- 

 ular is a surprise to me. I can hardly see how 

 it could be unpopular with any except those 

 who like very strong flavors. In one respect 

 alfalfa stands at the head, and that is where 

 sweetening is wanted without the flavor, as in 

 coffee. The use of honey in coffee and tea is 

 greatly to be commended on the score of 

 health, but the flavors of most honeys are ob- 

 jectionable. The flavor of alfalfa is so mild 

 that it takes the lead as a sweetener for hot 

 drinks. [When R. Wilkin was speaking 

 about alfalfa honey not being the most popu- 

 lar, I suspect he had reference principally to 

 the State of California, or those localities 

 where white mountain sage is produced. I 

 never saw the Californian yet who did not pre- 

 fer this honey to the best white-clover honey 

 or the best alfalfa; and the very fact that buck- 

 wheaters in York State prefer their dark rich 

 honey, which most of us dislike, goes to show 

 that locality and the education of taste have a 

 good deal to do with the local popularity of 



any one kind of honey. Although I have been 

 brought up on clover and basswood, preferring 

 the clover, yet as between these and alfalfa I 

 prefer the latter. As between alfalfa and 

 white mountain sage the alfalfa suits my taste 

 better. Yes, if the time ever comes when al- 

 falfa honey will be produced largely in Cali- 

 fornia, we shall expect a revolution in taste ; 

 but for absence of flavor I think mountain 

 sage will stand ahead of alfalfa. In that re- 

 spect it would be even better for sweetening 

 coffee and tea. It is true that honey for sweet- 

 ening either of these table drinks is not very 

 desirable unless there is little or no flavor. 

 Buckwheat honey would be the least desirable, 

 while white mountain sage or alfalfa would be 

 the best ; and yet even these, as mild as they 

 are, will not be liked as well as cane sugar, 

 which comes as near being a real sweet with- 

 out flavor as any thing in the world. — Ed.] 



" There are some people who wear Con- 

 gress gaiters, and yet I suspect a great major- 

 ity will wear nothing but laced shoes " — page 

 753. Yes, very few will wear Congress shoes, 

 just because they can't get them. I bought 

 one pair of laced shoes a year or so ago ; and 

 if I'm ever forgiven for the time I wasted in 

 stringing up those shoes every morning I'll 

 never buy another pair so long as I can get 

 Congress shoes by paying a good deal more. 

 And sometimes bee-keepers use a thing, not 

 because they like it best, but because of the 

 difficulty of getting what they do like. [I 

 used to wear Congress gaiters exclusively, and 

 was wont to say, as you now affirm, that I 

 could not afford to waste time in stringing up 

 shoes every morning, to say nothing of the in- 

 convenience of being doubled up like a jack- 

 knife for a period of a minute or two; but aft- 

 er I had worn two pairs of the laced, I discov- 

 ered that they were easier wearing, and they 

 permitted me to make the shoe fit my ankle ; 

 whereas the Congress shoes, owing to exces- 

 sive tension of the rubber, very often pinched 

 the ankle so tight as to be decidedly uncom- 

 fortable. After the shoes became old the rub- 

 bers would stretch out, and then I would have 

 that degree of comfort that I now have with 

 laced shoes. Now let me tell you what induc- 

 ed me to discard the Congress shoe. I had 

 been making a hundred-mile run on the bicy- 

 cle, with Congress gaiters. On arriving at Dr. 

 Mason's that night I told him my ankles were 

 swollen. I remembered that, during all the 

 ride, they were very uncomfortable. After 

 the doctor's examination he exclaimed, ' ' Why, 

 Ernest ! don't you know better than to wear 

 such tight rubbers around your ankles?" 

 Well, the result was I took my knife and split 

 the rubbers till I had room. But this prefer- 

 ence for Congress gaiters and laced shoes il- 

 lustrates very nicely, I think, the preference 

 that bee-keepers have for various devices that 

 are used in the apiary. I have known some 

 bee-keepers who preferred the Clark cold-blast 

 smoker to a Bingham or Corneil, even at the 

 same price. For my part I would not take a 

 Clark as a gift, providing I could get a hot- 

 blast; and yet how the other fellow can prefer 

 the cold-blast is something I can not under- 

 stand. — Ed.] 



